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Abstract

The emergence of media technology, especially television has been capturing children's lives as it is the most central and pervasive form of mass media which possess multiple qualities. The purpose of the study was to understand what television content captures children's magical mind. The study was carried in Mizoram, one of the seven sister states in the Northeast India. Keeping the identified stages of child development, 160 children were selected from early childhood and middle childhood groups. The study refers them as younger children (4-7 years) and older children (8-11 years). They were selected from willing private and government schools. Within the action of collective viewing, children also have their own individual differences in choices of channels and programmes. Some variations in their choices were related to familiarity with local Mizo games, gender, age and seasonal cycle of a programme. Despite these differences, the perceptual features of animation and child oriented programmes ignite a child's interest. Cultural specific content and language familiarity engaged and enhanced both appeal and engagement for children. They were captured by the humourous absurd characters and behaviours, rhythm and rhymes and the extraordinary actions. The aesthetic ability in scenes and novelty in content also engaged a child's imagination and attention.